Your letters: June 12

Objects to school voucher expansion

President Theodore Roosevelt; Oct. 12, 1915: "I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of church and state; that public moneys shall not be used for the purpose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools shall be nonsectarian and no public money appropriated for sectarian schools."

Dear Sen. Lasee and Rep. Bies: I vehemently oppose any portion whatsoever of the tax dollars I pay as a citizen of the state of Wisconsin being used for school vouchers to fund the education of Wisconsin children at "faith-based schools" or "non-public schools" of any type.

I urge you to also strongly oppose these initiatives and put your support entirely behind our public schools. Our public schools are there for all. We must keep them strong and make them stronger. Wisconsin public education has a wonderful history, let us do everything possible to keep it so.

John R. Yount

Sturgeon Bay

Letter writer was out of line

Most of us read letters to the editor and either agree or respectfully disagree with the writer's point of view and go about our day. In a June 5 letter the writer levels an attack against the Rev. Cynthia Barnes Johnson and her universalist beliefs that is so hateful that we cannot sit back and ignore his vitriol.

We feel that if a person is unjustly attacked, we are all attacked. If another's beliefs or opinions are not respected, our opinions may not be respected. We should all be able to share our opinions; that is our First Amendment right, but when that right becomes abusive that is when the rest of us must speak up and say, "We don't agree and we won't stand by while you malign another."

There is room in our county for many faiths and lifestyle perspectives. Let us be tolerant of opinions other than our own.

Sue and Mike Spitz

Baileys Harbor

Move on, Southern Door

Okay it is time to move on, the citizens of Southern Door have spoken the referendum did not pass. A recent letter stated, "The defeat of the referendum was due in part to at least one school board member sabotaging the referendum with almost outright misinformation." If you truly believe that one board member can affect a vote, I sure hope they have the power to get this budget under control also.

If the insurance and the pay is as bad as the letter stated, no one will be leaving their job to come to Southern Door, so therefore there will not be any openings for the Southern Door teachers to go to. Regarding the statement that there was no raise for teachers for the last four years, then how do you explain the increase in salaries and benefits?

In a recent letter the shot at the so-called "shipyard worker" was untrue. If you check your facts the shipyard worker does not get summers, weekends, nights, and some don't even get holidays off. They do not get sick days, personal days, or comp time, and if you don't punch in you don't get paid, unless you use your vacation. They also work a minimum of 249 days (taking out the paid holidays) provided they never work any weekends or holidays; teachers are contracted for 190 days.

Southern Door has a middle school principal who has a partial contract and manages to get the job done. Why don't all the principals have the same contract? There are no students there for most of June, all of July and most of August; maybe the board needs to look into the efficiency of these administrators. We have jobs that have been outsourced and the people doing those jobs keep getting the same wage to do less. The entitlement that some feel is what is wrong with the Southern Door budget.

We are a family that lived on a "shipyard" worker's salary and it is nowhere near what you stated. It has put a roof over our heads, food on the table, vehicles in the garage, vacations, extracurriculars, and it paid for college beyond Southern Door, along with the taxes to support our local school. Yes, there were holidays and weekends we had to make adjustments, and when a wage and package freeze of 24 percent came about, we could not go to referendum, we had to adjust and live within our means. But we did not take it out on our kids, and we still paid our taxes to support our schools.

When you rely upon funds to run your daily operations, you are a business and you need to run it like a business. Special thanks to the finance committee for due diligence and reducing our interest rate and saving the district money. Now is the time for everyone to get on board and make the necessary concessions to balance the budget and live within the means we have been afforded.

Kim D. Welch

Sturgeon Bay

Bring Dad to Breakfast on the Farm

June is a great month for those of us that are lucky enough to be a dairy farmer. In June, we get to take our minds off rain, drought, milk prices and corn prices to focus on our county's Breakfast on the Farm event. This is the best chance we, on the farm, have to show everybody else what we do and how we do it.

Thirty-some years ago, the first Breakfast on the Farm events in Kewaunee County tended to be an event by farmers for farmers. Now, however, times have changed. Only about 1 percent of the people in the U.S. farm for a living. The farther people get away from their agricultural roots, the more curious they become about where and how their food is made. Each county's Breakfast on the Farm event is the perfect opportunity to do just that. The principles of dairy production are still pretty simple: Do the best job possible to keep your cows comfortable, healthy and content, and they will take care of you.

Even though the principle never changes, the tools we have available in modern agriculture do. As an industry, we are proud of what we do and how we do it. Please plan on coming to Breakfast on the Farm so we can show you.

This year's Kewaunee County Breakfast is at Norman Acres on County B, south of County J. This will be the only Breakfast on the Farm event on June 16, Father's Day. You can't find a better place to take Dad for breakfast.

We are also doing something new this year. The many dairy farmers attending the event will be wearing buttons that say: "Ask me, I'm a Dairy Farmer." Likewise, dairy industry professionals, such as veterinarians and nutritionists, are wearing buttons saying, "Ask me - Cow Expert." These people will be ready, willing and able to answer any and all questions you may have about modern agriculture.

Whether your questions pertain to what you see on the farm, an article you may have read about interesting, new technology, or even a letter to the editor meant to scare you about agriculture, we will be there to make our food production practices as clear and transparent to you as we possibly can.

We hope to see you on Father's Day, or perhaps on a different June Sunday in another of our northeastern Wisconsin county Breakfasts on the Farm.

Don Niles

Casco

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Your letters: June 12

President Theodore Roosevelt; Oct. 12, 1915:

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